This isn't your typical New Year's Day post.
I'm not going to talk about all the resolutions I'm making.

I'm not going to wax poetic about the future and all the wonderful opportunities waiting to arise in the New Year.

I am going to tell you one of my favorite things about the New Year.

My new calendar.

If there's anything I love more than notebooks, it's calendars. Paper calendars, mind you, none of this digital scheduling business. Sure, I could enter all my activities in my phone or on my computer (like my husband and most of my friends do).

But for years and years, I've carried a little weekly pocket calendar in my purse, with a pen or pencil attached, and that works just fine and dandy for me. Of course, my life isn't all that complicated. I don't have many any business meetings to attend, my social life consists of getting together with a friend for lunch or dinner now and again, and I go to doctor appointments once or twice a year on average (knock wood). Since the wonderful intervention of post-it-notes, I jot down my to-do lists, or phone numbers and stick it inside on the page.

A few years ago my husband and I were at a meeting with our financial planner. The three of us were trying to schedule a follow up meeting. I whipped out my pocket calendar and sat poised and ready while they fumbled through their electronic scheduling devices searching for an appropriate time.

"What about June 9?" I asked.

Wait. Wait.

"No, can't, have a meeting," Jim answered. "What about the 14th?"

"That fine for me," I replied, glancing at the little square marked "14" on the page.

Wait. Wait.

"Oh, looks like I'm on vacation," our FP said.

After about five minutes of fumbling around, they finally found a mutually agreeable date. Within seconds, I jotted it down on my calendar and put it back into my purse.

Wait. Wait.

Sigh.

Aside from the increased amount of time it takes to manuever through the days on electronic calendars, I like to see the entire spectrum of a week or month right before me. It bothers me to see my life split up into sections of time small enough to fit into the screen. I guess I'm a big picture person ~ I like having it all laid out there in front of my eyes.

That's why I keep going back to my paper calendars. For the past three years, my calendars have come to me from marketing samples sent to our company. There's always lots of choose from, and they're nicely embossed with the company name. Plus ~even better~ they're free! <smile>. Although I admit that I do covet fancy day planners, like these from Levengers.

But I guess I'll stick with my little free pocket version. It serves my rather uncomplicated life quite nicely.

Since I first learned how to tap the keys on an old Remington manual typewriter, I’ve loved to write. It’s how I make sense of life in general and my own in particular. It’s how I understand myself and the world around me. “The good writer,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, “seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the universe which runs through himself and all things.” As I write about my own life and share my own stories, I hope you recognize that thread of similarity running between my universe and yours.